Saturday, October 24, 2015

Ready for your weekend browsing - our weekly round-up of favorite links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images via Twitter.
• Highland fever: from 1829 onward, where Londoners shopped for all things Scottish.
• "Tom Jones": the history of a female soldierin disguise.
• Amazing photos of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
• Early 20thc. rebel Jean Rennie: an angry young kitchen-maid who earned her degree.
• How the Suffragettes used fashion to further the cause.
• Representations of fashion in the 1785 Lady's Magazine.
• Image: Early 20thc. velvet swan hat.
• Exploring Blackwell, a stunning late 19thc. arts and crafts house in the heart of the Lake District.
• Naughty putti.
• Photographs of 19thc. women and their really, really long hair.
• Sharpers, shopkeepers, and the Georgian era.
• The only eyewitness painting of Lincoln's assassination is finally being restored.
• Image: 1925 cartoon from Punch: "Good Heavens, man, grow your hair - you look like a girl!"
• Road trip: in defense of historic mid-century American motels.
• A 1920s posographe was essential for early filmmakers who wanted to make sure the light was just right.
• From bloodstone to fish soup: 18thc. recipes featuring iron.
• The mysterious and majestic stone circle at Lochbuie.
• Medieval animal tales from manuscripts.
• Image: "The Little Royal Astronomer" c.1850-60 features the children of Queen Victoria.
• London in the age of improvement: the Regent's Canal.
• American families from the 1830s in folk art by Joseph H. Davis.
• Photographs from the New York World's Fair, 1964-65.
• The role of British women pharmacists making explosive/dangerous chemicals during WWI - and why they demanded the vote.
• Motherhood in art: from miracle milk to joke-shop breasts.
• Bad air: pollution, sin, and Victorian science fiction, 1880.
• Image: Man-bun, historical Highland style.
• The truth behind the Battle of Trafalgar.
• Just for fun (and just in time for Halloween): recipe for "creative" mid-20th century Banana Spook Cake.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.